Nature is cruel, all living things are struggling to survive, and some creatures are often able to show surprising means to achieve their ends. For example, the mimetic functions of some predators, special weapons, etc., are the result of their long-term evolution. And today I want to introduce a jumping spider that disguises itself as an ant - an ant spider.
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Ant spiders are mainly distributed in tropical rainforest areas, are carnivorous spiders, mainly ants, small insects for food, some of them are very similar to ants, it is difficult to distinguish, they sometimes raise their forelimbs, disguised as tentacles, not only the appearance, they even the usual movements are very similar to ants. As for the reasons why the ant spider imitates the ant, I think everyone should be able to guess, first: in order to eat other unlucky ants; second: to be able to live in a comfortable ant nest; third: to avoid predators, because ants have a strong group aggressiveness, and many predators do not like the ant acid.
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Ants and ant spiders are very similar in posture and color, for example, the body lines of the ant spider and the ant are almost exactly the same, and then the color of the ant spider will be different according to the object they imitate, because the ant's vision is very weak, and when in contact with other organisms, it will be more inclined to use touch and smell, so the ant spider will even imitate the taste of the ant colony as much as possible at the level of chemicals in the body, and the smart ones will emit the same smell as the ants. When the ant spider encounters the ant, it will warmly come forward to say hello, use the movement of the limbs to make the ant mistakenly think that it is the same kind of ant, and when it is close to the ant, the ant spider will suddenly bite the ant and inject venom into the ant's body.
The biggest difference between ant spiders and ants in appearance is that they have eight legs, while ants only have six. Therefore, in the evolution of ant spiders, they evolved to walk with only three pairs of limbs, and the remaining pair is used to imitate the ant's beard-like antennae, and even the movements of the antennae can be perfectly imitated, of course, if carefully distinguished, it can be found that the forelimbs of the ant spider will be much thicker than the ant's antennae. Finally, of course, don't forget, to learn to pretend to be blind like ants, such a perfect camouflage, ants naturally can not distinguish that there is an "undercover" among them, and the peace of mind with the ant spider into their nest, so that the ant spider will successfully live a comfortable life in the ant nest.
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The most important task of the ant spider after mixing into the nest is not to be discovered, once the ants begin to suspect, they will not hesitate to start attacking, at this time the male ant spider will use their large mouth to once again disguise as a soldier ant. And they will use the scissor-shaped abdominal limbs called scissors to carry goods, and they will become worker ants, which is really a very good "undercover" job.